Guest column: A response to John Nix

Published: Saturday, March 8, 2014 at 05:49 PM.

I am writing in response to John Nix’s guest column titled “One-Stop voting gets expensive,” which appeared in the Free Press last Sunday.

Mr. Nix’s primary concern appears to be about money – specifically, the $25,000 “fiscal liberals” (his code term for all Democrats) plan to spend on early One-Stop voting – rather than voting. The Board of Elections budget for fiscal year 2013-14, which was carefully and judiciously developed by the elections director working with the immediate past Board members, submitted to the County and approved, and included in the county budget, includes $126,000 to fund this year’s primary and general elections. The money is already in the Board of Elections budget. Funding for One-Stop voting, even at Mr. Nix’s figure, represents less than 20 percent of that appropriation.

Contrary to the claim that “One-Stop voting produces poor results,” One-Stop voting in the 2012 election resulted in nearly half the total votes cast in the entire election. One precinct’s early voting numbers were, indeed, low; that precinct was obviously included in Mr. Nix’s averaging of the votes cast in all four One-Stop precincts, skewing the actual numbers to reflect his disapproval of the outcome. Any precinct worker in any of the other three One-Stop precincts will attest to the heavy early voting turnout.

Governor Pat McCrory himself is on record supporting the General Assembly’s mandate that the number of One-Stop voting hours remain intact, in an attempt to balance the new voting law’s reduction in days. Board of Elections member Courtney Patterson wasn’t “resisting” an attempt by the Board majority to reduce the early voting hours; he was simply affirming North Carolina law to his colleagues.

I am writing in response to John Nix’s guest column titled “One-Stop voting gets expensive,” which appeared in the Free Press last Sunday.

Mr. Nix’s primary concern appears to be about money – specifically, the $25,000 “fiscal liberals” (his code term for all Democrats) plan to spend on early One-Stop voting – rather than voting. The Board of Elections budget for fiscal year 2013-14, which was carefully and judiciously developed by the elections director working with the immediate past Board members, submitted to the County and approved, and included in the county budget, includes $126,000 to fund this year’s primary and general elections. The money is already in the Board of Elections budget. Funding for One-Stop voting, even at Mr. Nix’s figure, represents less than 20 percent of that appropriation.

Contrary to the claim that “One-Stop voting produces poor results,” One-Stop voting in the 2012 election resulted in nearly half the total votes cast in the entire election. One precinct’s early voting numbers were, indeed, low; that precinct was obviously included in Mr. Nix’s averaging of the votes cast in all four One-Stop precincts, skewing the actual numbers to reflect his disapproval of the outcome. Any precinct worker in any of the other three One-Stop precincts will attest to the heavy early voting turnout.

Governor Pat McCrory himself is on record supporting the General Assembly’s mandate that the number of One-Stop voting hours remain intact, in an attempt to balance the new voting law’s reduction in days. Board of Elections member Courtney Patterson wasn’t “resisting” an attempt by the Board majority to reduce the early voting hours; he was simply affirming North Carolina law to his colleagues.

To staff the One-Stop voting sites, the Board of Elections has a trained pool of 170 precinct workers. If a schedule is developed that rotates precinct workers in six- or seven-hour shifts for the 10 or 11 days of One-Stop voting, there will be three outcomes: no additional precinct workers will be needed, no overtime will be accrued and no additional training will be required.

Training for all precinct workers before each election is required by state law and is included every election year in the Board of Elections budget. No “squandering of taxpayer dollars” is involved, and with proper oversight, none needs to occur.

Mr. Nix disingenuously claims that reducing the number of voting hours is “not racially divisive or designed to disenfranchise any demographic” of voters. Besides being in opposition to existing law, reducing the number of available early voting hours is designed to reduce the availability of voting to the people who use One-Stop voting most. Those voters happen to be predominantly Democrats. That fact belies his claim.

Unlike the column’s assertion, the Lenoir County Democratic Party is as concerned as any other group about the responsible and effective use of citizens’ tax dollars. But the party is also deeply concerned about all qualified citizens being able to vote. As Democrats, we believe that all citizens have that right and should be given ample time to vote, regardless of their other life commitments. We should not be cutting back voting days or voting hours, but rather making voting as accessible as possible and giving every citizen an opportunity to vote.

Making it more difficult for any voter to exercise their constitutional right and obligation to vote is not leadership; it’s punishment based in political ideology. Protecting our citizens’ constitutional rights with money that’s already appropriated for voting activities seems to me to be a better way to ensure that legacy of social and economic growth Mr. Nix says he prizes.

I consider Mr. Nix’s vitriolic personal attack on Mr. Patterson to be exactly what he accuses his target of being: “disgraceful, irresponsible and unprofessional.” It’s regrettable that The Free Press chose not to edit his submission. The column seems deliberately designed to perpetuate the poisonous partisan discourse that permeates the media these days.

Sharon Kanter is the immediate past chair of the Lenoir County Board of Elections and 1st Vice Chair of the Lenoir County Democratic Party. The opinions of the guest columnist are not necessarily those of The Free Press.